The present invention relates in general to a card connector and more particularly to a card connector of the type which is used for mounting a card on a mounting board wherein the card has a plurality of contacting portions arranged along one side of the card and a plurality of grounding electrodes adjacent to the arrangement of the contacts.
Among various types of cards of the type described above, there are cards in which a transfer of a general signals to and from the mounting board and connection to the mounting board for the ground wires are divided from each other and conducted separately. This type of card has in general a plurality of contacting portions for a general signals arranged along one side of the card and, in addition, a plurality of grounding electrodes adjacent to the arrangement of the contacts. An example of this type of the conventional card connector will be explained first with reference to FIGS. 6 through 10.
The conventional card connector comprises a connector element 100x and a frame element 200x, the detail of which will be explained below.
The connector element has a plurality of pin contacts 110 one end side of which are correspondingly connectable with the arranged contacts mounted on the card and the other side of which are correspondingly connectable with the arranged pin contacts 110 through a terminal 150, and an insulator 120 which hold the pin contacts 110 so that their axial direction is parallel with the insertion-withdrawal direction or a first direction and so that the insulator 120 is fixedly held to the mounting board 300 by a hold-down member 130.
The frame element 200x has: (1) a guide portion 210 which are connected with opposite sides of the insulator 120 of the connector element 100x and extended in the insertion-withdrawal direction of the card and serves to guide the opposite surface portions of the card at the time of insertion-withdrawal of the card; (2) a metal frame portion 220 which serves to connect the card-guide portion 210 together at its upper side (that is, lower side of FIG. 7); (3) a grounding metal plate 230 having a plurality of contacts 231 and connects the card guides 210 together at a portion which is adjacent to the connector element 100x of its lower surface side (an upper portion of FIG. 7) and serves to connect the contacts 231 with the grounding electrodes of the mounted card for connecting these grounding electrodes with the grounding wire of the mounting board 300; (4) a card forcing device 240 which has a push button 241 disposed at an end portion of each of the guide portions 210 so that it is pushed by manipulation at the time of card withdrawal, an ejecting bar 242 disposed on the side portions of the card guides 210 for transmitting a pushing force of the push buttons 241, a card forcing plate 244 which is disposed between the card guides 210 for forcing (or pushing) out the card from the connector element, and a lever 243 for transmitting a force of the ejecting lever 242 to the card forcing plate 244; and (5) an earth lug portion 250 which is disposed on the lower surface of each of the card guides 210 for providing an unnecessary or excessive electric current of each part and portions of the device to the grounding wire of the mounting board 300.
The conventional card connector described above has a structure that, as shown in FIG. 9, the connector element 100x is fixedly held to the mounting board 300. The terminals 150 are connected by soldering or the like with the electrodes of the mounting board 300 and then the electrodes and the pin contacts 110 are connected with each other. Then, the frame element 200x is displaced from an obliquely forward portion of the connector element 100x (that is, from a tip end direction of the pin contacts 110, which is shown at the right top direction in FIG. 9 for the purpose of showing a fixedly holding position between the mounting board 300 and the frame element 200x in FIG. 9) so that the frame element 200x is slid or moved along a surface of the mounting board 300. Thus, the frame element 200x is coupled with the connector element 100x and, at the same time, fixed to the mounting board 300 as shown in FIG. 10.
When a card is required to be inserted into the card connector, the card is pushed into the card guide portion 210. On the other hand, when the push button 241 of the card forcing device 240 is pushed by a fingertip operation, the pushing force is transmitted from the push button 241 to the card forcing plate 244 to permit the card to be removed from the connector element 100x. Therefore, the card can be withdrawn easily.
The conventional card connector explained above has the structure in that the grounding metal plate 230 is disposed for coupling the card guides 210 at the portion adjacent to the connector element 100x, the frame element 200x being coupled with the connector element 100x after the connector element 100x is previously fixed to the mounting board 300. In this structure, when the connector element 100x and the frame element 200x are coupled together, the grounding metal plate 230 is disposed between the pin contacts 110 and the mounting board. Accordingly, as shown in FIG. 10, the pin contacts 110 and the grounding metal plate 230 are partly overlapped with each other in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction. As a result, the overlapped portions are interfered with each other when the connector element 100x and the frame element 200x are coupled with or released from each other. Even if a care is taken to avoid such a overlapping when the coupling and releasing operation is conducted, the pin contacts 110 and the grounding metal plate 230 are hit against or collided with each other and results serious problems of damage and break of the pin contacts 110.